StepMania

StepMania is a free, open source simulator of Konami s popular arcade game and video game console video game series, Dance Dance Revolution .

=Gameplay=

You can use your keyboard to play StepMania . It is also possible to play using a PlayStation-compatible controller or dance mat, using a specialized adapter that connects to a computer s Universal Serial Bus or PS/2 keyboard port. StepMania has also been ported to the Xbox; it requires a modified Xbox in order to run. This version of StepMania is considered illegal because it was compiled using the XDK.

The concept is simple: as arrows rise to the top of the screen and pass a certain point, press the corresponding arrow on the keyboard/controller/dancemat. You are scored based upon how close your arrow presses are to the right moment. Sometimes this is easier said than done and takes some practice. See Dance Dance Revolution and Pump it Up for a more in-depth description.

=System requirements=

These requirements are only the minimum needed to run the game, and having just the minimum does not necessarily result in smooth operation.

*Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Linux, Mac OS X

*Pentium II or higher, Celeron, Athlon, or compatible processor, 266MHz minimum (400 MHz recommended)

*64 MB of memory

*Video card that supports High Color (16-bit color) and has 16MB video RAM and OpenGL drivers.

*DirectX 7.0 compatible sound card with drivers

=Features=

Owing to its open-source development, StepMania has a number of features, both based upon Dance Dance Revolution and designed by the programmers. Some of these include: *Dancing characters: 3-dimensional rendered models, drawn behind the arrows onscreen but in front of the background graphics. During normal gameplay, they dance according to a pre-defined routine; in older releases of StepMania they were portrayed standing on a dance mat in the style of Dance Dance Revolution Extreme, but this feature is currently broken *Background animations: Support for many types of animations behind the arrows onscreen, including sprite-based, full-motion video or FMV visualization overlays. *Step editor: Allows the user to create custom steps to existing songs. *Gameplay modifiers: Visual modifiers to either add or take away from difficulty. Many modifiers from Dance Dance Revolution are included, as well as modifiers original to StepMania. *Mines: a type of step new to StepMania, wherein the player is penalized for leaving the indicated sensor active. *Support for other rhythm game formats such as Pump It Up, ParaParaParadise and EZ2Dancer. SM displays the symbols used for these games, but does not emulate their unique scoring system. *Lyrics support *Themes: Users can download or create their own graphical user interface for Stepmania. *Songs and stepfiles: The stepfiles define the dance you ll do during gameplay. The song is what tune you re dancing to. Note that while stepfiles can be shared and copied, you may be breaking copyright law if you use or distribute a stepfile package with copywritten songs you don t own.

=Availability=

The popular Debian GNU/Linux distribution currently will not provide an official package for StepMania because the artwork in the default theme is very similar to the original Dance Dance Revolution game. Because the artwork is not available under a free software license, the game cannot be officially packaged with Debian until a unique theme is created. Such a theme is in the works for the fourth iteration of StepMania.

Other DDR simulators include Dance With Intensity, pydance, and Flash Flash Revolution. A particularly novel DDR simulator called Text Text Revolution can be displayed on text-only terminals.

In the Groove (game) (ITG) is a commercial game that uses the StepMania codebase. To prevent software piracy, StepMania was re-licensed under a less restrictive license (changed from GPL to the MIT License with the agreement of all coders, in exchange for their names appearing on the ITG credits screen), not requiring source code to be published on derivative works, and thus allowing ITG s copy protection to remain closed source.

A new type of multiplayer version of Stepmania is also being worked on by a company called Positive Gaming AS in Norway. At The Gathering (party) 2005, they demonstrated a Version that let 20 players play the game simultaneously. It is first and foremost being created with gyms in mind, but more applications are being developed for it.

At least one DDR arcade machine has been retrofitted with a PC running StepMania, and as of January 2004 was being used in a London arcade. The machine has since been removed from the arcade, for reasons including disagreement between arcade and machine owners, as well as technical difficulties resulting in the machine becoming unstable and too unreliable for public commercial use.

Tokyo Game Action in Woonsocket, Rhode Island runs a custom built Stepmania machine called DDR: Forever.

=See also=

*The Dance Dance Revolution series *Dance With Intensity, another DDR simulator *Flash Flash Revolution, an online DDR simulator *pydance, a DDR simulator coded using the Python programming language. *Dancing Monkeys, a program which generates random steps for use with DDR simulators.

=External links=

(see also Dance Dance Revolution#External links External links) *[http://www.stepmania.com/ StepMania Homepage] *[http://www.sf.net/projects/stepmania SourceForge Stepmania Project Page] *[http://www.stepmaniaonline.com/ Stepmania Online] Play StepMania online with other users. Currently in beta. *[http://www.ddrmaniax.net/ DDRManiaX] runs the official forums for Stepmania. *[http://www.bemanistyle.com/ Bemanistyle] has original simfiles for download. Note: Currently experiencing server issues. *[http://www.flashflashrevolution.com FlashFlashRevolution] hosts original simfiles. *[http://www.ddrextreme.co.uk/ DDRExtreme.co.uk] hosts original simfiles; currently they are not available. *[http://www.ddruk.com/ DDRUK] has official stepfiles available for download via BitTorrent. *[http://www.ddrnorway.no/ DDR Norway] is a Norwegian site for DDR with some StepMania resources. *[http://www.andybrain.com/archive/stepmania.htm Video games and exercise: It can be done with Stepmania] Beginner s introduction to Stepmania, including equipment recommendations